Local veterans had mixed reactions to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal admitting this afternoon that he “misspoke” about his service during the Vietnam War in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Blumenthal said at a press conference that he unintentionally said he served “in Vietnam” when he meant to say that he served “during Vietnam.”

Michael Stergio called Blumenthal’s misrepresentation of his service “disgraceful,” and said the attorney general’s explanation of using a “few misplaced words” does not change his opinion. Stergio, of Salem, spent 13 months in Vietnam with the Marine Corps.

“It was exactly what I thought he’d say,” said Stergio, also a 20-year state police veteran. “It’s the obvious comeback. What is he going to say? The record speaks for itself. He doesn’t know the difference between being in Vietnam and serving during Vietnam and he thinks he’s qualified to be a U.S. senator?”

Stergio was injured in an ambush in January of 1968. He was treated in Vietnam for shrapnel in his leg, and returned to combat until August 1968. Three quarters of the 150-man company were injured or killed in that ambush.

“I always looked up and respected Blumenthal but this, I can’t excuse,” Stergio said. “It’s the most despicable thing anyone can do. Now he’s just another candidate out there that I wouldn’t vote for.”

Veterans take the distinction between serving “in Vietnam” and serving “during Vietnam” seriously, said Morris Bodine, commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart eastern Connecticut chapter.

“If they didn’t see the bloodshed, or the horror, and the death, and the smell of napalm, then they really can’t say that they were there,” he said.

Bodine, a bulldozer operator with an Army engineer battalion in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970, was hit with shrapnel when his convoy was ambushed. His left ankle and the lower part of his left leg had to be reconstructed.

As the chapter commander, Bodine has interacted with Blumenthal on numbers occasions.

“He is a very intelligent man and I don’t understand why he would make a claim like this,” he said. “He knows how veterans feel about that.”

This issue may change many veterans’ perception of Blumenthal, Bodine said, but he feels that the attorney general still deserves credit for everything he has done for veterans.

“There isn’t a politician alive that doesn’t have flaws,” he added.